


Support

by poisontaster



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Aftermath, Aftermath of Possession, Ficlet, Gen, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-07-26
Updated: 2008-07-26
Packaged: 2018-04-24 11:19:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4917565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poisontaster/pseuds/poisontaster





	Support

"…know some of you guys…you don't remember. And, and, I'm not saying it's better—to not remember—because it's not. It's absolutely not. But…well, I _do._ Not everything, of course. But enough."

She lingers in the doorway, uncertain. The low-slung cinderblock building is full of people, she supposes, a half-dozens of other meetings like this one, fucked-up people sitting in powwow circles just trying to make sense of it all. Trying to get through another day.

She'd sort of doubted it, when she'd come across the cryptically worded ad in the paper—the one she still holds in her print-smudged fingers like a worry bead—but after months of this…void, she guesses she's willing to try anything.

"You here for the meeting?" The voice asking is deep-throated but not loud. It startles her as much as if he'd shouted, though, and she jumps, gasping, the ragged clipping of newspaper fluttering from her fingers like a leaf. The man bends to pick it up for her. He's enormous and black, two things that would've terrified her once—and still do, just a little—but after everything that's happened, size and color seem the least of her worries.

A small spate of clapping jerks her head back toward the ongoing meeting. The tall, rawboned woman who was talking sits down, tucking her knees and ducking her head in a way that seems all too familiar while another man, grizzled and thick-bellied stands up twisting his gimme cap in his big hammy hands.

"You come for the meeting?" the black dude repeats, holding out her piece of paper. The white cuff of his long sleeve pulls back to show a pale and ropy loop of scar tissue, too neat to be accidental. She looks up at him to find him smiling at her. "It's safe here," he continues, jerking his chin down to draw her gaze to the gritty line of salt drawn across the room's threshold.

Her breath punches out of her, leaving only dizzy white noise. She's been skittering in shadows so much she can't really remember the last time someone smiled at her. Or the last time she felt safe outside the hastily researched defenses of her apartment. Mostly, she doesn't like to prod her memories at all, like a person pretending the dull ache in their jaw isn't a tooth gone rotten and strange. The awareness of it is there, but the mind just slides sideways past it, choosing not to know.

Of course, if she really wanted that—forgetfulness, denial, oblivion—she wouldn't be _here._ She'd still be hiding at home.

"I'm not sure," she admits. Her lips feel puffy and cold. She puts her fingers to them, remembering only too late the ink on her hands.

"I'm Bill," he says, stepping across the line first, careful not to dislodge any of the salt with his shoe or pants cuff.

She doesn't step over the line so much as hop over it before she glances at him wall-eyed.

"You don't have to tell me your name," Bill reassures her. "You don't have to talk at all, if you don't want."

In her mind, there's a shark-fin flash of all those things she's trying not to remember: the alley, the cloud and its dark, oily taste as it raped its way into her throat, the strange skewed glimpses of herself, her body, all seen from very far away, doing things she didn't want, hadn't asked for, _feeling_ things that had no place in a human mind…

She puts her hand to her mouth again, swallowing frantically against the thin taste of her own bile, but she nods and follows him into the room.

The guy with the gimme hat gives it another twist, licking dry lips before he says, "Hi, my name is Randy an'…and I was possessed."

She lifts her voice in chorus: "Hi, Randy."


End file.
